Kahoot is such a HOOT!

It has been a LONGGGGGG time since I have written a blog post. 202 days to be exact. Many times I have thought, "Oh! I need to share that!" but, alas I got busy with school, my kids, life. To celebrate snow day number 13, I thought I would return to blog land and share one of my student's favorite formative assessments this year. Yes, you read that right, this is by far one of my student's favorite things to do... and it can be used as an assessment. Every time we Kahoot, they beg for more and a resounding "ahhh" is heard when the game is over. My student's love Kahoot because they get to use either the Chromebooks or iPads to compete against each other. I love Kahoot because I can assess their learning, I can pinpoint exactly who is struggling and who is succeeding, I can download the results into a spreadsheet for my future planning, students can use any device to access Kahoot, and... it's just plain ol' FUN!

After signing up for a free account at create.kahoo.it, create a quiz or search the public Kahoot's someone else has made and shared. I would highly suggest watching the intro video the first time you visit the site.

When you're ready to play Kahoot with your students, direct them to the website play.kahoot.it and you stay logged into create.kahoot.it. On your screen, click play when everyone is ready. I usually do this ahead of time to cut down on precious class time. 

After you click play, you will be given a code for your students to enter into their devices that will connect them to the game. Then they will be instructed to type in their name and enter the game. 

It's time PLAY!!! I mean... assess. It's time to assess. Students are shown a question on the board along with the four answer choices. When you create a quiz, you assign a time limit for each question. Students have until the timer runs out to answer the question. Points are awarded to students based on their correct answer AND the amount of time it took them to respond. 

After all students have answered, the correct answer with a graph of each answer submitted is shown. The next screen shows the class the top five scores for the entire game. On each student's screen in the top right hand corner they can see what question the class is on, the amount of points they have, and the place they are in. 

When the fun and assessment is finished, students are given the opportunity to rate the game and how they felt about their assessment. This screen will also lead you to download the final results to either Google drive or an excel spreadsheet. 

So there you have it... my favorite formative assessment. The next time you want to spice up your assessment, give this a try. You will love it and so will your students... I promise!